


A Hair's Breadth Apart

by nerdybloomers



Series: 120 Drabble Challenge [16]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming of Age, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Past SasuSaku, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, kakasaku - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 06:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17976431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdybloomers/pseuds/nerdybloomers
Summary: As a child, Sakura spends countless hours checking her hair - in mirrors, shop windows, puddles - wondering just how it’d change. Self-consciousness about her forehead changed into an anticipatory anxiety of her streak. Her mother’s is at her temple, and family tends to follow the same way.She's absolutely shocked when Coming of Age Day comes and her streak isn't at all what she imagined.





	A Hair's Breadth Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by trashkakasaku on tumblr asking for a soulmate AU involving hair - I'm sorry! I said I was working on this months ago. I hope this is good despite how late it is! Please let me know if you have an ao3 handle so I can list this as a gift fic. I haven't written Naruto fic in, uh, over a decade.
> 
> As a note: Japanese Coming of Age Day is in early January each year, and celebrates the passage from childhood to adulthood in an abstract sense. Historically the age is 20, but was lowered a few years back to age 18, reflecting the age of legal adulthood in a lot of other countries. For the sake of the fic, I'd say that the age of majority is still 20 in Konoha, and child soldiers actually reaching adulthood? Probably something they'd celebrate. 
> 
> Also fulfills the 120 Prompt Challenge from my own deviantart of ages past, prompt 3: Midnight Whispers. The prompt can be found here: http://shibaayame.deviantart.com/art/120-Drabble-Challenge-250678524

As a child, Sakura spends countless hours checking her hair - in mirrors, shop windows, puddles - wondering just how it’d change. Self-consciousness about her forehead changed into an anticipatory anxiety of her streak. Her mother’s is at her temple, and family tends to follow the same way. She grows it long so that she hopes she can tie her hair back and wear it proudly someday, when she can.

 

She meets Sasuke and falls hard, holds a candle for him through so much, _so much_ pain and self-absorbedness and his eventual return to the village for a short time. She reminds herself that she loves him, and that he deserves to feel loved, after all that’s happened to him. She vows to not only heal the wounded, but heal his heart. He still frequently leaves the village, but he doesn’t seem to dislike the idea of sticking around and maybe even moving in together after coming-of-age day.

 

It’s tradition that the mirrors and reflective surfaces be covered, and that these new adults be blindfolded, before joining their contemporaries at the ceremony conducted by the Hokage. She waits patiently while her mother arranges her hair in high curls and dresses her in her kimono, but her mother’s face doesn’t give any clues. She seems… almost disappointed though, her lips pressed into a line to stop herself from speaking, and Sakura can’t pin down why. She knows her mother isn’t Sasuke’s biggest fan, so that must be it, to resign herself to sucking it up and putting up with her daughter’s soulmate -

 

She doesn’t have time to dwell on it. She gets blindfolded and her parents lead her to the ceremony site. She can hear Naruto’s complaints about being blindfolded in general, and how they increase in volume when they’re told the Hokage is, unsurprisingly, running late. She also feels Sasuke’s presence next to her, and his mumbling about how he’s just going to get this over with, and his arm brushes hers as he takes off his own blindfold impatiently. Who put it there for him in the first place? She wonders, but smiles at him, before frowning, shivering in the January cold. He’s entirely too quiet, even for Sasuke. The wind picks up but it doesn’t feel like normal wind, the burst is too short. _I guess he left?_

 

A sudden burst of applause and tension hits the crowd, and she hears Kiba bark about how this is the beginning of the end, doing nothing to dispel the heavy weight starting to settle on her shoulders.

 

The hokage - her briefly-assigned sensei, whom she’s actually gotten to have real conversations with now, and holds somewhat of a promising friendship prospect - announces that they can all remove their blindfolds, and the murmur rises to an excited chatter. Naruto and Hinata seem to be soulmates and she’s not surprised. The Hyuuga heiress’ blush colors her face, wrapping around to the pale blonde underlayer of hair tucking itself into her bun in a spiral, seeing Naruto’s sudden lowlights of deep blue around the crown of his head, tipping his unruly spikes. Ino has black in her bangs now, and Sai matches with a couple streaks of platinum framing his face. She tries to look around but stops when she sees that Sasuke is missing. Her mother grabs her shoulder and hands her a pocket mirror with a face just as unreadable as before.

 

The streak at her temple is silvery-white, and she wonders just how prophetic Kiba’s comment is.

 

Sakura’s mind goes blank. This isn’t an outcome she’d anticipated, after pining for someone for so long now, and she’s swept along by the crowd. Ino invites her out to lunch, after stopping halfway through her sentence to stare for a second before recovering, and she’s sure she must have agreed because the next time she becomes aware of herself, she’s got a cup of tea in her hands and a plate of food she doesn’t remember ordering resting on the table.

 

Ino doesn’t give her much time to recover, once she notices the focus has returned to her best friend’s eyes. “Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to redirect the conversation?”

 

Her best friend is a blessing. “Redirect,” she chooses, and the blonde-with-black nods, and luckily she doesn’t have to answer any questions.

 

She takes her hair down at home, and she cries as she isolates the offending lock, using a nearby kunai to crop it shorter than the rest of her hair.

 

+++

 

When Kakashi meets his genin team, he sighs. He does his best to fail them, for probably a better reason than the other teams he just didn’t want to teach. He talks to Sarutobi to get them reassigned. He does goddamn near everything, but the gods’ sense of humor is cruel, and borderline disgusting.

 

He thinks of his dad, without his mask, for the first time in a good long time. His mother’s hair color peppered its way through his father’s beard, but he covered it for her safety. Kakashi followed suit and masked himself on his own for years, and it’s only been a few years himself since his own coming-of-age ceremony with no leads on who exactly his soulmate is. He then vows to shave every day, just in case the mask slips, and says nothing to these kids.

 

He feels the crushing responsibility when Sasuke leaves the first time, and a guilty relief when the other two split off to seek other teachers. The last six months of his life have been extraordinarily taxing, stepping on so many eggshells, but now he has time to relax the best way he knows how: diving headfirst into missions.

 

On the rare occasion that puts Kakashi to task with two-thirds of that squad and whatever other stragglers get assigned, he half-assedly tries to back out. Tsunade’s eyes are piercing when she tells him to keep those kids safe, especially her apprentice, and the copy ninja swears she  _ knows _ . Maybe she’s peeked under his mask mid-treatment. But her face doesn’t give away any sign that she’s said anything, so he thanks the powers that be for the benefits of doctor-patient confidentiality, and turns to pack his bag.

 

He sees Sasuke pass briefly while keeping watch over their camp for the night, while Sakura and Naruto sleep. He’s not surprised when there isn’t a single fiber of pink on the Uchiha heir’s head.

 

+++

 

One week after the ceremony, Sakura is the only name on her apartment lease, and it seems half-empty without the guy she’d half-expected to share it with. Even with Ino pacing her kitchen floor, rapidly flipping between “I’m here for you, sweetie” to “you wanna go find him and kick his ass?” the way best friends do, she feels pretty solidly middle-of-the-ground apathetic. 

 

On one hand, she’s sad and angry and just plain disappointed. She’d gone through hell and back for him, sat through years of his chilly demeanor to break the ice, to find out that he’s not the one the universe wants for her - and he has the absolute gall to deny her the will to try anyway? She’s come a long way from being the scared little girl on a bridge in the Land of Waves without a spine to speak of.

 

On the other hand, she did understand. If her hair didn’t have that Uchiha black, then his probably didn’t have any Haruno pink. It did feel somewhat wrong to try and overcome a rift like this. If there were better options out there - or option, because while multiple soulmates was rare it wasn’t entirely unheard of - maybe Sasuke wanted her to pursue that unhindered.

 

She settled on boiling up to being livid for the time being. The ass didn’t even say anything, just packed his life up and left again. So she let herself be pissed. And outwardly happy for her friends, of course, but she promised herself not to speculate on her own. If Sasuke wanted to be gone, so be it. 

 

She dives into work and doesn’t let herself have a moment to think.

 

+++

 

Work, as always, proves to be interesting with Tsunade and Shizune off on sabbatical now that the village has completely passed hands. And of course the next most prolific physician gets to shoulder all of their responsibility, or at least part of it - she thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to double-duty as hokage.

 

The real trouble was that she was the hokage’s doctor, and that probably should’ve been its own job. For a notoriously lazy man, Kakashi sure had some latent ability to overwork himself. Truth be told she couldn’t blame him though - paperwork was the most silent of killers. So on top of her usual hospital shifts, and the clinic she was working on getting off the ground with Ino, Sakura frequently found herself checking up on him. Usually it was the same exhaustion symptoms, or his eyes were strained from staring at papers all day and his novels at night, and she’d prescribe a day off.

 

This time, though, it’s half past midnight, and she opens her front door to find Pakkun, Bull, and an incoherently drunk Kakashi sprawled across the big dog’s back.

 

“What am I, his mother?” Sakura sighs, cinching her robe tighter at the waist before reaching for the second-drunkest hokage she’s ever seen. “Pakkun, status report.”

 

The pug sits up a little straighter. “Genma thought he needed a break, so he came over with enough liquor to kill a cow, but he decided to leave before he passed out. Boss summoned us to pour him drinks in his absence, but that wasn’t the best idea so we brought him here.” Pakkun tucked himself out of the way as she and Bull lay him down on her well-worn couch, his head lolling to the side.

 

“Maa, Sakura-chan, give my boys a treat,” Kakashi slurred, trying - and failing - to point in the general direction of his ninken. “Such good boys.”

 

She chuckled. “In a minute,” she assured him, in the same way she’d stave off the unreasonable request of a child. “I’m going to get you something to drink first. Ah, that got your attention. Not liquor. Water or coffee?” She heard a whiny grumble as his face changed from interested to disgust. “That didn’t sound like real words.”

 

He grumbled again, which Pakkun translated as “coffee”, which would have to be enough of an affirmative. Sakura quickly returned with two cups, because if she was going to be playing babysitter all night, she’d need it too. She watched him nod limply in lieu of a verbal thank you, taking note of his unfocused eyes as she set his cup on the table in front of him. She settled on the opposite end of the couch, tucking her legs under herself for warmth.

 

She heard, more than saw, the drunkard next to her slap his thigh in realization, before loosely stringing together an approximation of the words “mask” and “peeking”. Kakashi leaned forward, clumsily gripping his drink, having skipped the handle on the side to grasp the body of the mug with both hands. And then he mumbled something like “especially not you”, which didn’t surprise her, because she’d heard Tsunade brag about having seen his face before, so of course he was wary.

 

“Okay, okay, I won’t look,” She rested her cup on a side table in the opposite direction. “It’s been a decade. I think I’ve outgrown the childish need to see your face for no good reason.”

 

Kakashi froze; for just a split second, he sat eerily still for a man three sheets to the wind. All of a sudden he felt uncomfortably sober, so he downed his drink as quickly as he could and settled down to pretend to fall asleep. Things were getting complicated now. No, she wasn’t a child. She was five years past coming of age day.

 

Maybe sleep would sort the situation out for him.

 

+++

 

Sakura shivered awake. The clock on the wall could’ve read either three or eight AM, but judging by the darkness outside it was definitely the former. And Kakashi had also dozed off, if the soft snoring at the other end of the couch was any indication.

 

She stretched - the couch was far from her favorite place to sleep - and the chill hit her again as she untucked her limbs. Blankets were probably a good idea if she was planning on staying out here to keep vigil on him just in case. She padded to her bedroom, slowly, finding her favorite blanket as well as the scratchier one she reserved for sleepovers. If Kakashi threw up all over that one, she’d cut the loss and toss it in the trash without a thought. Not that he still looked as sloppy-drunk as he appeared when he first came to her doorstep, but she’d rather not chance it with the other blanket that Ino claimed.

 

The moonlight filtering in through the cracks in her living room blinds alerted her to a little more cheek than she was used to seeing, still somewhat obscured from ten feet away. Sakura’s breath caught in her throat. Earlier comments be damned, she could be the first person since Tsunade to see, after over a decade of conjecture…

 

Pushing a sharp exhale outward, she steadied herself. She was twelve when she’d last put in any effort to sneak a peek, and while it was extremely tempting to turn back on her earlier word, her dumb curiosity was worth far less than the sleeping hokage’s trust. So instead, thankful for years of blindfolded training and knowledge of her own apartment layout, Sakura closed her eyes and rounded the couch to deposit the blanket, catching a toe on the edge in the process.

 

“Shit,” she cursed, wincing for pain and again for making more noise than a ninja should have around a sleeping charge, but not remembering where the coffee table was her own damn fault.

 

Kakashi woke with a start. The room was spinning gently and his mouth felt like it’d taken a trip to Sunagakure, and it took a couple moments for his eyes to focus in the intermittent natural light. His wobbly gaze landed bemusedly on what was just as likely a drunken hallucination as reality: Sakura, hands full of blanket but scrambling to send a smidgen of seafoam green chakra to a toe, balancing on the other foot, with her eyes screwed shut.

 

_ This is hilarious _ , he noted, trying his lightly-buzzed best not to laugh or call attention to himself. Even with his brain steeped in liquor, he knew that this was a dumb moment to be saved for future embarrassment. Blackmail is an effective currency in the hands of the right hokage. And the way she was slowly ambling towards him was something he’d surely have to remember to pantomime at her in the future.

 

Suddenly he caught a glint of something in her hair, and again he felt sobriety crash over him like a wave. He thanked his lucky stars that she was scrunching her eyes shut, so he couldn’t be seen staring in awe. A ray of silver, shooting from her temple, a spot easily hidden. When it wasn’t hastily pulled back, he’d have no way of knowing. His chin itched, and he absentmindedly reached up to scratch it through the thin material… which was instead pooled at his neck.  _ Huh. So that’s why she’s keeping her eyes shut.  _

 

The wave crashes again, bigger this time. Sakura keeps the streak short, most likely to keep it a secret. He’s kept his face covered since his academy days, but he realizes it’s been at least half a week since his last shave, maybe even more. But maybe we can just skip this. Forever, preferably. He’s not the type to make grand romantic gestures, even though he’s fond of reading them. She must be embarrassed of the color.

 

But the biggest pounding wave rears again, he can feel it pull before the words even cross his mind:  _ am I embarrassed? _

 

It crests and then pounds down, drowning him in possibilities. She’s an adult, she can make her own decisions. Kakashi’s role as hokage may put him in a position of power, but no authority he has grants the right to take this possibility away from her. Was he really doing this? He was doing this. The worst that can happen is nothing. The best… well, his experience taught him to not let his hopes get too high.

 

Sakura stills when she hears him whisper her name with no evidence of previous slurring. She expects him to say his mask is back up, all clear, but all she hears is the rustling noise of him shifting to stand, the soft pat of bare feet on her hardwood floors, and then silence. She takes a deep breath and she doesn’t feel, but smells him standing in front of her, faint alcohol and wet dog and ink. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

 

He raises his hand to the side of her head without answering, brushing a thumb straight into the little patch of pale hair, but doesn’t retreat when she flinches. Not even when her eyes fly open as she’s startled, first flashing to a fighter’s glare before catching on the face in front of her, bathed in moonlight.

 

The face with noticeably pink stubble littering its chin.

 

Kakashi snorts. “I didn’t plan on saying anything, for what it’s worth.” And he can watch her thoughts play out on her face, from confusion, to realization, to anger… to anger?

 

“Why not?!” She barks, and it’s awfully late for that volume. Sakura doesn’t care. “You… you knew, didn’t you? Since genin assignments. Why didn’t you just-”

 

The tide threatens to pull him under again with its ferocity. “I wasn’t going to risk anyone thinking I was grooming you, that’s fucked up. Even for me.”

 

But she pulls back, and he can hear her throat clench. “No. Why did you let me chase him? If you knew this whole time?” She’s crying, and even if she had any hopes for finding her soulmate after all this time and all this  _ bullshit _ she never imagined herself tearing up. It seems so antithetical to the person she’s become. So disingenuous. “Just… why?”

 

_Well, now you’ve done it, dumbass_. “Because you wanted it so bad,” is the answer he gives, which isn’t the one she wants to hear, but the one Sakura needs. It was never his place. Between the power imbalance, and the age gap, and her own feelings most of all - he had no place to act. “Thank you for the coffee, Sakura. I’m feeling much better, so if you’d just excuse me-”

 

“Oh no you don’t,” she intones, and the anger that boiled the air around him a second ago simply evaporates into annoyance. Even she seems surprised with herself. “I deserved that. I don’t deserve my most notorious patient skipping out on me just because he’s a little shy.” She smiles, eyeing the beginning of a rose-colored beard, and closes her eyes again as she lets herself throw caution to the wind for once. She works up just enough courage in the moment to ask: “Why bother leaving without shooting your shot?”

 

It’s been so long that he almost forgot how to recognize genuine flirting. Cat’s out of the bag, and she’s not running for the hills, so what the hell. “I’m bushed. Can we talk about this in the morning? Over coffee?”

 

Sakura brushes past him, heading straight for her bedroom. She’s done playing hide-and-seek, and they both know it. Seize the day… or the early morning, or whatever. She turns back, and the sight is breathtaking: hair up, wrinkled pajamas, bare feet, arms still full of blankets, and a look that says  _ join me, if you want this. _

 

Kakashi nearly trips over his own feet following her.


End file.
